The time has finally come for me to migrate back north to the beautiful (but terribly run) state of Washington. During the winter I flee the cold, wet, and stupid weather and rent out a bedroom with my awesome Arizona friends (sometimes known as the Desert Rangers).
This is a fairly frantic time, trying to make sure everything is ready for a mostly seamless migration back home. This means clearing out pictures and memes so they don’t get lost until next year.
This year, in a possibly ironic twist, these unused pictures and memes are mostly pictures that Substack’s new picture generator has produced. Yes, I’m aware that this could be seen as “Look at what AI drew today!” as a basis for producing new content — something I literally just railed against.
Well, in the words of Prof: I never said I was perfect — (just close).
The whole thing got started when I was having a conversation with my friend during the NBA Western Conference Finals. He said something like “I wonder what Steph Curry is thinking” — so I decided to ask the AI to create a picture of Steph Curry on the couch (his team was already eliminated from the playoffs). Here’s the best version that I got:
That is pure nightmare fuel. But it got me wondering, what capabilities does this thing have? Gato has been using Midjourney to generate some pretty amazing pictures. Can this version do the same? (I was already skeptical)
At the time I was working on my Mt. St. Helens article, so I asked it to give me a picture of a cat surfing down the Mt. St. Helens mudslide:
Well, it’s almost a cat who’s almost surfing. And that could be Mt. St. Helens in the background. (Once again, this was the best version I was offered)
I’ve complained a few times that there’s no pictures of Mark Zuckerberg as Marvel’s “Vision”, so I asked it to come up with one:
Another miss, IMO. At least put him in the costume!
When I asked for Bill Clinton doing a Nazi salute, I got this mortifying picture back, seemingly also featuring John McCain with Clinton at the beach:
Okay, so this thing obviously isn’t good at handling people. What about a picture of “an endless supply of booze”?
That’s not bad at all! Certainly sort of stockphoto-y, but close enough for government work, as they say.
When I tried the same exact prompt but in “comic” style, it lost the plot again:
The program had more luck coming up with something for “an awesome sunset”:
Even when I told it to change styles:
Finally, I asked it to simply “draw your favorite picture”, and this is what it gave me:
I don’t really have an overarching point or anything here, it just seemed appropriate to (finally) highlight these pictures while we’re in the middle of my series of articles about AI.
That brings us to our final ‘G&B’ update of the year. Last year, Gangster was just a tiny little dude who could still sleep in a milk crate. This year he’s a basically full-grown dude who wanders off for a week at a time and takes over my keyboard tray (now the catboard tray) when he comes home. Along with a scary incident with a giant hairball, he’s had quite the epic winter!
Of course, his most important event of the winter was adopting a new cat! (Him, not me. Nobody owns a cat.)
In Late December, Gangster started hanging out with a new friend. She was skittish around people but LOVED to hang out with G.
We started with simple kitty games and getting used to being around one another. One of you Screamers decided her name should be Bonnie, and it stuck. Soon she was comfortable enough to sit in my lap and let me pet her now and then. Eventually I discovered that Bonnie was a little bit of a lovebug!
Now, she loves hanging out with the cat gang at night and even comes inside to hang with G for short periods of time! Although technically still a stray, at this point Bonnie knows where to come if she’s having a tough time outside. It’s going to be hard to be away from her for so long, but I have confidence that she’ll be just fine. (With a little help from G, of course!)
Hopefully while I’m gone, Bonnie will continue warming up to the other people in the house. Maybe she’ll even be settled inside by the time winter rolls around again!
OK, I have to wrap this up and get back to getting ready. Less than 12 hours to go before heading to the airport! Catch you guys on the flip side!
SC - Thank you for the thorough feline friends update. I was unaware of your nomadic existence, thus am saddened that B&G are not in tow. One does what they must and can. B&G will surely miss you and next winter awaits.
I hope it's okay to plug another one of my articles at your site. I'm 100-percent sure we are using the same type logic in our writing.
What would Mr. Spock say about our New Normal world? The writer’s tool of “logic” has led me to some very disturbing conclusions.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/i-try-to-use-logic-in-my-articles?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2